Something New.

I just finished chapter ten, and for the first time, I want to share what I have written. This is the first time I have done this, and probably will be the last time (hey, I want you to get the book for yourself, right???). However, I think ten is a very good number, and so to celebrate, I share with you. Please remember: this is my first draft, not my revised or edited draft. There will be typos, and there are areas to improve, so when you do read my book it will probably look a lot different, but for now, this is how it stands.

CHAPTER 10

I almost killed Mr. Dalupan.
I didn’t mean to, I swear. All I was trying to do was get an honest answer to an honest question, but somehow that turned into something way bigger than I was expecting.
Lisa, along with the student association officers, had planned a banquet for the high school student body. The partition walls separating my classroom from the sixth grade room on one side and the seventh grade room on the other (yes, fifth grade was smack dab in the middle… don’t ask me why, it never made sense to me either) were taken down and a big “multi-purpose room” was created. Streamers and balloons decorated the space and candles lit up the tables, along with confetti and plasticware. A beautiful banquet hall had been created and we were ready to celebrate love, infatuation, and whatever else it is you are supposed to celebrate at high school dating functions.
We girls, as mature and grown up as we were, felt the excitement, too. Clothes were being traded, tried on, and traded again, as we looked for something “formal” in the midst of all our worn out clothes. Instead of donning my usual cotton skirt and simple $7 Old Navy bargain t-shirt, I took a black skirt out of my dresser drawer and borrowed a pink top from Julia. With the right sandals on my feet and a black camisole peeking out from the V-neck of the shirt, I looked more put together than I had in several weeks. Amanda heated up the curling iron (that probably had been used once in the past six months) and opened up her bag of make-up (that had probably been used never since she arrived on Ebeye), and the beauty shop was open. Up-dos, down-dos, all kinds of hair-dos and make-up too; this was a nice change in our routine. Finally ready and needing to go join Lisa to help put the finishing touches on the oh-so-romantic classroom-turned-dining-hall, I headed out the door feeling beautiful for the first time in a long time.
That didn’t last so long.
It started with the first person I passed. Instead of the usual, “Yokwe!” and a smile, I got a stare that lingered long after I passed by. The next lady to pass – same thing. Not to say I didn’t get any smiles, I did. But they were from the men who smiled and stared, smiled some more and stared some more. With my eyelashes black with mascara and my skin smoothed out by foundation, I guess I didn’t look like there. Quickly I rushed on to the school, grateful to be out of the spotlight and into a place where I knew I belonged.
Clearly, the students knew the “warm” reception they would receive on the street if they walked to school all done up. One by one they filed in wearing basketball shorts and t-shirts, carrying plastic bags. And then, as if trained, the boys went in one direction, the girls in another, and they pulled their dresses and slacks out of the plastic bags and helped one another get ready. About an hour after the official start time, the banquet started and the fun began.
Being a faculty sponsor of any teenage activity has its highlights -- watching the hormone-driven young people trying to act smooth despite a rapid heart rate can provide hours of entertainment. But being a faculty sponsor an activity filled with Marshallese teenagers is even better. Take all the hormones that young people naturally possess and drop them into a culture where dating couples never hold hands in public or even share the fact they are dating, and everything (and I mean everything) is secret when it comes to liking someone of the opposite sex, and you have instant fun. To see otherwise confident seventeen year old boys sitting shyly next to the girl they had invited, desperately trying to find a way not be teased by others while still desperately trying to impress the young woman, priceless. Out of all the talent show acts, none could compare to simply people watching. This was true entertainment.
Finally, after the banquet was long over and the students had helped dismantle the banquet hall and turn it back into three respective classrooms, we said goodnight and parted ways. This time, however, it was the basketball shorts in the plastic bags instead of the prom dresses.

“I have a table missing from my classroom. If anybody has an extra one in their classroom that wasn’t there before the banquet, can you let me know? That would be great.”
There it is. My honest request shared at staff meeting the following afternoon. A table that was in my classroom before the mass destruction of classrooms was missing. All I wanted to do was put my already limited supplies back where they belonged. I was expecting someone to say, “Oh, yeah. I have it my classroom. Feel free to come and get it.” Or maybe even, “I think we put in over there…” as they pointed in the direction of “over there”. What I was not expecting was the top of Mr. Dalupan’s partially bald head turning incredibly red as he started leaning forward, his face contorting into a look of pain or anger. Maybe both.
“No table belongs to you. These are not your tables,” he growled. “Nobody stole your table.”
Shocked and utterly confused, I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I had just asked for help in locating the table that was there yesterday and was not there today. One that Abra, the maintenance man, had made per my special request so that my students had a place to work on puzzles in the back of the room when they were finished with their work. Trying to hide the quiver in my voice, I responded, “I understand that the table does not belong to me, but it does belong in my room. So, if anybody knows where it is, please let me know.” Quietly I added, “Thank you.”
Mr. Dalupan, however, was not satisfied with that response. Growing even redder, and with face scrunching up even more (which I didn’t know was possible), he continued on. “You come in here and think these tables are yours, and they are not. And then you put stickers on your tables. You are not supposed to put your stickers on tables! Stickers do not belong on tables!”
Now I was completely confused. First of all, other than the table that was MIA, I had no tables in my classroom. Even if I did, I would never put stickers on them. Surely he must have had me confused with somebody else, right?
“Mr. Dalupan, I am not sure what you are talking about. I haven’t put any stickers on tables. I’m sorry, I don’t think…”
“YOU PUT THE STICKERS ON THE TABLES!”
Oh boy, he was mad. So was I.
“No. I did not. Why would I put stickers on tables? I don’t even have tables except for one, and that one is missing. And it has not stickers on it.”
Drop. Dead. Silence. Around tables in the library, everybody sat quietly, looking down at their hands or picking at tape that was left by some art project in years gone by. Finally Zack broke the silence with a suggestion to pray and dismiss. As I closed my eyes for prayer I tried to go over in my head what had just happened, to figure this out. But I couldn’t. All I could do was think about how wonderful it would be if I could just click my ruby red slippers and be safe in my home, where people do not yell at other about that things that make no sense. But I had no ruby red slippers, and even if I did, this was not Oz. This was Ebeye, a tiny island with 15,000 people crammed together, yet I was alone.
One by one everyone made light chit chat as they filed out of the library toward home. Keeping myself as cool as possible, I laughed a little with Aye and Lisa about the banquet the night before and then bade them farewell saying I had papers to grade which they all knew was a total lie. Quickly I sprinted up the steps, pulled out my key and threw open the door, turning to lock it behind me. I needed some space and I knew this was the only place I could get it. Since the windows were just large squares in the walls with no glass and just wire to keep people and animals out, I could not completely barricade myself inside my classroom, so I did the next best thing. I crawled under my desk, with back against the cool metal and my feet sticking out on the dirty concrete in front of me, away from the open windows so nobody could see. And then I let the tears flow.
I had intended to sit there and cry until my hearts content, which I had expected to last at least an hour. After all, besides my small amount of tears on the beach a few weeks earlier, I had not actually cried since I had arrived. I had not had a reason to. The weight of everything, however, suddenly pushed down on me all at once. The desire to do the best I could for these kids; the struggle as I adapted to new people and new expectations; the longing for people who knew me inside and out, not just a one and half month version of me. All of this combined with the feeling of failure I unjustly felt. I should not feel guilty for something I didn’t do, I told myself. But I did feel guilty. Even though I did not put stickers on tables, I did clearly offend somebody, and I had no idea why.
That intended hour of solitude, crying it out of my system, however, was cut short. “Miss Tiffany? Miss Tiffany, I know you are in there. Can we talk?” There was really no place I could go to get away from everybody. Crawling out from under my desk while wiping at my tear streaked cheeks, I put on my best smile for I was not ready to face public defeat. I grabbed onto the chair in front of me and clamored up to a standing position. There, at the window, was Mr. Batlok, the Marshallese teacher at our school and an important man on the school board. Not wanting to have a conversation through a hole in the wall, I walked over and unbolted the door. “Miss Tiffany,” he began, “you are not here to make everybody happy. You are here to make sure our children on Ebeye get a good education. We see that you are doing that. We…” with that he swept his hand over the view of the ramshackle houses close together. “We are so grateful for what you are doing here. So please, do not let this discourage you. Mr. Dalupan is not from Ebeye, he does not understand. But I will tell you this: if you need your table back to do what you think is best, we will find your table. If we do not, we can build you another one.” Gently, he reached out and squeezed my shoulder. Then he turned and walked away.
Knowing that I could not go back to hiding under my desk, but also knowing that I could not yet go home and face all of the people who saw my public melt down, I went down the stairs and hailed a taxi-truck. For 50cents I found my solitude in driving around the island in circles for about an hour, grateful that Marshallese people by nature are not nosy and everybody pretended my puffy face was normal.

Later that night, after Lisa came and found my in my room with the lights off, headphones in my ears, trying to separate myself from the world for one last moment, I found out a couple of things. First, my table was actually in Mr. Dalupan’s room, and for some reason he thought I knew that and was trying to point that out in my question. This didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I accepted it as it was. And then I took my table back.
Second, by “stickers on tables” he meant “nametags on desks”. That being so, yes, I was guilty of “putting stickers on tables”, and I do not apologize for it. Children like having a place of their own, and teachers like having control over the seating arrangements. I guess it is just a difference between American and Filipino teaching styles.
Last, but not least, I found out that Mr. Dalupan had gone to the hospital. His blood pressure had spiked and they had him under observation to make sure he didn’t have a heart attack. Apparently I was not the only one stressed out after the meeting.
Oops.